It's been one of those days...

New Beginnings.. and an end to an old favourite.

I vividly remember Diana's wedding about 30 years ago.  An 8 year old girl, glued to the TV, watching the walk down the aisle.  I wrote a letter to my penpal as I watched the ceremony, writing down each important little detail as I saw it.  I remember my Mum telling me not to write a commentary of what was happening because it was likely Michelle would have watched it as well.  Funny the things we remember.

I'm not a big royal family fan but the TV will be on tonight.  I figure I owe it to Abby somewhat, she is the same age now as I was during the last big royal wedding.   I've tried to act interested by asking her what she thinks the dress will look like, how will Kate wear her hair, does she think it's cool that there will likely be horses and carriages?  It's the stuff fairytales are made of.  I want her to remember seeing it on TV.  Although to be honest, we'll be flicking between the Breakers game and the wedding.  Good old kiwi spirit dictates that I need to support the boys in dealing to the Cairns Taipans, so it'll be back and forward between the two programs.  I wonder how many other people will be doing the same.

This week I have studied harder than I have since the days of sleeping during Commercial Law and Operations management lectures.  Except this time I'm awake, I'm listening, I'm understanding so much - it's amazing.  It renews my excitment to become a supreme althlete - note the sarcasm.  The excitment is there, the supreme althlete, not so much.

I've also been developing SENZ classes.  I'll have sneaks for those out in a few weeks.  I'm busy creating a plethora of pages for a publication as well as Big Picture Classes.

While I've been creating I've been thinking about my blog.  As I give up more of the DT type experiences, I lose material to show on my blog.  I am a teacher more than anything else now.  Material I create is paid for and not shown.  I'll have to think of a way to share more though, as I want to maintain readership.  It makes sense to have a blog, it's how I share news of where/how I'm teaching next.  Besides.  I love to talk and it's nice when I'm listened to.  You may note that sarcasm also.  This time directed at the painted on ears of my near teenage son.

With classes being created it's also time to retire some.  The Summer Double, or it's more updated "Prima-licious" has to be my most favourite class I have EVER taught.  It has been to South Africa, Australia, Autumn Escape and Timaru!  I've taught it in excess of 1000 times and it has always had amazing results.  If you have a layout from this class posted on your blog at some point, I'd love it if you shared the link here.  Goodbye Summer Double/Prima-licious.  It's been awesome sharing your fun around the world. Laters

 
 
 

 

Places, people, stories.

It's school holidays here and the kids and I have spent a week so far doing fun stuff.  Building zoos on Zoo Tycoon.  The kids have spent a lot of time on their bikes.  Hubby has been away for nearly a week so I let Jacob make our evening meals.  It's been fun.

On Friday they got a little ratty though.  As they do.  I piled all three kids into the car, ignored their protests of how much they hate each other and being in the same space as one another, and I drove.

I asked them to pretend we were moving away from Pukekohe and suggested we take the camera and take pics of their favourite places they wouldn't want to forget.  They took the challenge and ran with it.. the first place?  The pukekohe train station.  So proud of my kids - I'm a train spotter - seems I've bred it into my children!

 

 

Next we went to the Pioneer Cottage .. place of large climbing trees, playground and the Pioneer Cottage I went to on a school trip with Abby.  She was so proud of my involvement so this was the place she chose as something pretty special.
While we were here we discovered there is a time capsule here... placed 2002 and due to be uncovered in 2052.  I had no idea it was there. 

 

Our next place was McDonalds.  Which surprised me because the kids must get it only once every month or two... but yep, MCds was next, and it came in handy for a Chocolate sundae.

Then the ideas rolled in from the kids... from the Pukekohe town square and fountain, to the top of Pukekohe Hill, to the park Jacob walks each day home from school, the kids were full of enthusiasm.  WE also visited the town hall and Library and arts centre where Abby and Braden used to play a game on the white pavers while waiting for JAcob to finish Kumon.

 
 
 

At the town hall we discovered a new art piece that we didn' realise was there.  This pic is of Braden reading all the words that run down it's edge.  It reflects the community spirit of our home town.  It's very cool.

 

All in all we spent nearly 3 hours travelling Pukekohe on a quiet Good Friday.  WE took pics of important stuff and I have great photos for a very meaningful layout now. 

This town hall is where we will be tomorrow morning at dawn for the ANZAC day dawn parade.  My grandad wears his suit and medals and marches every year to honour those that can't be there.  It's an honour to be there to support him.  It's a very emotional time.

Talking of emotions - I've been missing the journaling touches on my layouts lately.  I've spent a lot of time playing with gorgeous products but not leaving enough room for the stories.  This is the reason that I have resigned from the Prima design team.  I didn't reapply.  It's a fabulous team but it's time to move on. 

back to cuddles with my family, it's nice to be together again after spending time very seperately, with either Paul or I being away for the past 3 weeks.  Tag teaming parenting is no fun, it's fabulous to be a family of 5 again.

laters.

 

Autumn Escape - the quick run-down

Autumn Escape - this blog post can be the official I-haven't-recovered-enough-to-think-clearly-through-what-I-want-to-write-but-I-just-gotta-post-to-say-how-amazing-it-was post.

You know how it is.  Large event. A year in the planning.  I'm exhausted.  (That and I've been studying, first assignment on analysing fitness components and presciption of a training programme to meet personal goals is due Friday...) Wake up.  It's not that scary really.  Once you get over all the big words.

Anyway.

Autumn Escape came and went again.  It was our third year and once again I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere.  I especially love seeing the friends that use Autumn Escape once a year to catch up.  How cool is that.  Many met at AE on the first year and have formed solid friendships.  That's somethin special right there.

Becky Fleck was awesome.  (Seeing her barrell down a hill at the Zorb in Rotorua was awesome), the venue was awesome, Rachel and Lianne were fabulous as always ..but my highlight had to be the Scrapbook Outlet Taupo400.  Hamilton had their own 400 race this past weekend, we weren't going to be out-done!  We gave 20 ladies a challenge pack each and gave them 400 seconds to create a card.  There was paper flying everywhere!  Mexican waves flying around the crowd, cheers and support crews yelling their encouragement. 

THEN

Then we got some of the hotel staff to join in.  Best fun in a long time. 

I'll leave you with some pics of the event, I will have more in days to come, but for now, this is a taste.  Thanks Lesley Cooper and Rachel Tucker for sharing your photos with me. 

And biggest question yet?  Will there be an Autumn Escape 2012?  We are already booked in to the Wairakei venue.  We just need a little time to formulate tutors and classes and make sure we have everything covered before we open registration.  The planning never ends...

 
The boxes of stuff before the retreat... this wasn't all of them.  Look at that superb labelling system... oh yea.. organisation PLUS!

 
One side of the centrepieces... the planner for the weekend.  All of the flowers were handmade by some of our amazing team in the weeks leading up to the event.  Just some of the many goodies we handmade for the ladies that came along.

 
The candy bar... this was halfway through the night when it was already depleted.  You can't see it very well but there is a big basket of letters for the ladies to make words.  They say "I want" right now...but the words changed throughout the weekend...

 
 
The Autumn Escape team... Rae Scrapmatrix, Ange from Scrapware, Lucy, Becky, Lynda-the-awesome-shop-lady, Lianne-mixed-media-canvas tutor, and don't-trust-me-with-your-room-key Kate Booth.
Tana-the-best-TA-ever, Kate S the-2nd-best-TA-ever, Rachel Tucker, Nic and Ruth-the-other-awesome-shop-lady.

 
This was halfway through the Saturday.  Noone noticed me having a little nap did they?  It was Ok to do so...this was during Becky's class... I wasn't teaching!

Thanks to everyone that came along - it truly was awesome.  Leave me a link/comment if you see photos elsewhere on the web, I'd love to see.

laters :)

Bags packed.. time to hit the road...

Two cars and a haulage trailer packed.  Becky slept about 13 hours last night.  We are ready to hit the road.  Taupo.  Autumn Escape attendees.. I hope you are ready. 

I'm proud of what I have acheived over the last week.  After a fairly stressful few weeks it is falling into place.  True Scrap was a massive success.  (I'll post some of the feedback below ... if you are interested in buying the 'recordings' package, it's still for sale on the True Scrap website...).

Because I'm in a good mood, I'll extend my offer of a little packet of happiness to anyone that signs up through my links and sends me their receipt via email.  It's a selection of gorgeous little embellishments and bits and bobs, perfect to inspire a little scrapping.  Anyway.  Places to go.  People to see.  Autumn Escape has been a year in the planning and we are ready to hit the road!  (Feedback from True Scrap below - so proud to have been part of this one, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up with everyone, so glad I did!). 

 

<<... I haven't been able to view all the presentations yet, but the ones I did see (Ali, Nic, Shimelle and Noell) were simply outstanding.  I got so much out of them and I can't wait to try the techniques and ideas >> (Susan)

<<Have been watching the videos and absolutely LOVE EVERYTHING ...well done and thank you for organising this >> Wendy

<< thank you also for putting together such an incredible event!  The presentations are awesome and so is all the work that has gone into this!>>  Tara

<< this entire thing is so awesome!  I'm SO impressed!  Looks fantastic!>>

<<Roll on True SCrap 2>

Me too!  Looking forward to doing this over - it was an outstanding event.. hoping to be involved in True Scrap 2!

Laters!

 

 

Finding the teal in anything...

Friday night and it's the end of another super busy week - just the way I like them obviously because I keep taking on the work.  A lot of creative people thrive under pressure, and whilst I argued for a long, long time that I wasn't very creative, all I have to do is look around my office and see what I have surrounding me and I can give myself permision to say "Yep, I think I'm a creative type.".  And loading myself with enough work to set a slightly stressful edge to my day obviously encourages that.  I don't think I'm alone in that.

So here I am, as I said, end of a busy week.  Autumn Escape is nearly fully ready to go.  I have 18thousand post-it notes on my desk telling me otherwise but I was never one to be afraid of post-it notes so I'm going to say I'm quietly confident that we are under control.  Yes.  We. Are. Under. Control.  The last newsletter goes out either tonight or tomorrow.  Watch for it!

Prima.  Ahhh sweet flowery Prima.  Prima are looking for a new Design Team.  See the info here and if the thought of being on their Design team excites you, then enter.   I'll probably be applying again as well.  It's not an automatic roll-over, as Prima likes to renew their design ladies regularly.

SENZ - SENZ isn't far away and I'm going to have a bumper amount of classes.  Email me and let me know what you want to see.  I love teaching, ever since the early early years of teaching for Crafting Connection, it's been something I get a real kick out of. Perhaps that little bit of stress I thrive on again?  But anyway, email me, let me know what you want to see!

Tim Holtz.  Even in my busiest of days I find time to check in quickly and see what Tim has been up to.  I've been watching with a sentimental eye this past week as Tim travels the exact same trip I travelled throughout South Africa last year.  I see photos and recognise the places and the people.  I was there not so long ago.  Glenda's South African event is one of a kind, amazingly organised and so incredibly popular.  Ahhh sweet memories.  What I would have given to be attending at the same time as Tim Holtz.  I'm guessing there'd be a lot of us thinking that exact same thing.

Finally.  The Color Room.  This website is so beautifully presented and so full of inspiration.    I was honoured to be a guest designer this week (thanks ladies!).  I found the colour palette a little intimidating and I admit, I struggled with it.  But then I found the teal.  I can find the teal possibilities in anything.  I enjoyed working with a sketch that was outside my norm, as well as a colour palette I found tricky.  All the details are on the Color Room website if you want to join in. 
Here's my layout, created with Misty's beautiful little girl Skye again. 

Time to clear some post-it notes.
laters.